YOU WILL JETTISON ANY COMMON SENSE, DECENCY AND FAIR-MINDEDNESS YOU ONCE HAD AND REPLACE IT WITH MECHANICAL, PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL THOUGHT PROCESSES THAT DO NOTHING TO ADVANCE THE QUALITY OF LIFE IN OUR SOCIETY.

why? you can't apply different modes of thinking to different situations?

I love that you classify philosophy as being a discipline with firm answers, but the law provides none. In many ways your argument is 180 from the truth. The law, it could be argued, is an attempt to codify philisophical and moral concepts into a logical and practical framework for society..

For the sake of truth, the INfamous Bell Curve has a very direct connection to Social Darwinism and the eugenics movement. The book "The Bell Curve," for instance, is perhaps one of the most controversial books of all time. Written by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the book uses empirical statistical analysis to reach conclusion of intelligence gap in American society. Two of the most controversial conclusions reached by the author are the relationships between low measured intelligence and anti-social behavior and the observed relationship between low African-American test scores, when compared to Asians or whites, and genetic factors in intelligence abilities.

Social Darwinism is often linked to eugenics, and is the backbone of Herrnstein & Murray's arguments, according to which humans are separated not only by race and class, but also by IQ - this being the central theme of the arguments brought forth by these authors. This argument may deviate from the original 19th century theory of Social Darwinism; however, its use of statistical analysis of IQ is the central thought of 20th century Social Darwinism. The conclusions of the authors suggest people who have high IQ would be more "successful in life" and people with low IQ will encounter more problems in life such as unemployment, divorce, crime, and poverty. Using Social Darwinism, survival of the fittest (or should we, more appropriately, say, survival of the unfittest, the fat lazy a s s e s?) and other laws of evolution can be applied to human society; hence, it can be understood, that the people with high IQ be successful in life therefore have a easier time passing on their "good" gene to the next generation because they have a easier time finding a partner. On other hand, the people with low IQ, often exert anti-social behavior, hence have problems finding and supporting a partner, therefore would have problem passing their gene to the next generation.

This idea is the 20th century Social Darwinism. This idea is also the idea behind eugenic movements and research which was not unpopular during the time.

Some may argue the connection between "The Bell Curve" and Social Darwinist eugenic movements of the time. But many facts show strong connection between the two. Firstly, as early as 1971, Herrnstein published an article in a prestigious US magazine, 'Atlantic Monthly', and can be quoted "the tendency to be unemployed may run in the genes of a family about as certainly as bad teeth do now.... As the wealth and complexity of human society grow, there will be precipitated out of the mass of humanity a low-capacity residue that may be unable to master the common occupations..." Secondly, Herrnstein's political stance is very conservative; "It is hard to argue that the "class struggle" can be resolved by a redistribution of wealth and capital, if it should turn out that something more than economics distinguishes the contending classes." Thirdly, quoted from an ABC New Report transcript, "Ever since 1937, the 'Pioneer Fund' has promoted the study of racial purity as a an ideal. Over the past 10 years, according to public documents, the 'Pioneer Fund' contributed $3.5 million to researchers cited in "The Bell Curve."

Finally, Herrnstein is found to be connected with the journal 'Mankind Quarterly', which is owned by Roger Pearson for the last 25 years. Pearson was a leader of the pro-fascist Northern League, which included a number of former Nazi SS officials, and a member of the World Anti-Communist League, described by former member Geoffrey Stewart-Smith as a collection of Nazis, fascists, anti-Semites, and vicious racists. These facts suggest strong ties between the authors and ideas of "The Bell Curve" with Social Darwinism movement of the time. "The Bell Curve" brought the theories of Social Darwinism into the public. It introduced the mass population to the idea IQ, something heritable, being the main determining factor for success in life, and it did it in a "scientific" way which help the idea to be accepted by the public.

Listen - we know they use this IQ thing based on the Bell Curve and the like - but we all also know it's not that law schools, for example, really believe that LSAT is such a reliable entrance criteria they use (not the only they use, btw) - they just use it!

And please don't gimme that * & ^ % -

"If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck."

That's exactly all my posts have been about, I guess, moderation - which I am sure it gets lost most of the time.

the b i t c h card: if your replying to vaplaugh, I guess s/he's saying that the poster "22" has not entered his/her original ideas, but had instead copied/pasted - which, of course, is not a crime, but is something frowned upon by the academic word (they actually consider it "stealing proper," since they say, that's all we have - words!)

In this well-known old song, an English canon composed by John Hilton in 1652, we are encouraged to follow an invisible leader. But before we decide to do so, we ask him "whither shall I follow? Whither shall I follow thee?" The answer sounds tempting: "to the greenwood tree..." So,... off we go!... Or perhaps not?

Bion's Theory of Thinking -- "Container-Contained"

The theory or the "model" at the base of author's reflections is Bion's model "container-contained", also called his "theory of thinking". The relationship between container and contained is central to Bion's thinking seeing it as basic, a ubiquitous pattern of relationships which, as it were, biologically pre-programmed. In other words, it is one of nature's key patterns. It is at one and the same time: the model of conception (penis-in-vagina), gestation (embryo-in-uterus), alimentation (nipple-in-mouth) and elimination (faeces-in-colon).

I highlighted the part of the post I am not sure it's coherent with the rest - anyone cares to explain a bit?

colo, I guess it means that people find it difficult to organize in that-ideal-form-of-social-rule and that not rarely they give consent to be ruled by people who just have the courage to go ahead and lead (rule) others the way they will. It may not be the best/worst way possible, it may be close (enough), but who knows/will ever know?!

Not to mention that old sayin' "Old men start wars and young men fight them!"

Take Hitler: They say there is insufficient evidence that Hitler was an overt homosexual. But it seemed clear he had latent homosexual tendencies, and that he worried a lot about them. He was terribly concerned, for example, lest he give the impression of showing feminine traits - which, indeed, he did. A colleague of the himself-homosexual English diplomat and historian Sir Harold Nicolson, spoke of Hitler as being "the most profoundly feminine man that he had ever met, and that there were moments when he became almost effeminate."

Hitler also revealed fears of homosexuality by protesting so much that he had no feminine characteristics whatsoever. He was totally masculine - tough, hard, cold, ruthless, brutal. His tendency to think in terms of disjunctive stereotypes about men and women (strong, iron-willed, effective males vs. weak, emotional, incompetent female) is in itself revealing. Such thinking demonstrates a strong conflict and confusion between masculine and feminine natures. To him, sexual differences appeared as exaggerated and mutually exclusive opposites, as roles to be played, rather as natural attributes of human personality. In Hitler's case, as in Himmler's, the fantasized tough male role developed into sadism, murder and destruction.

The question of Hitler's latent homosexuality can also be approached indirectly. It can be stated with some confidence that Hitler must have had latent homosexual tendencies because he showed clear indications of paranoia. This does not mean that all homosexuals are paranoid, but it does mean that all paranoids have fears of homosexuality. The direct connection between homosexuality and paranoia was first noticed by Freud, who concluded that paranoia "invariably arises from an attempt to subdue an unduly powerful homosexual wish."

There is a terrifically strong need to deny homosexuality; the very thought of sexual contact with another man is "completely intolerable." Moreover, the need felt by a paranoid for approval is especially acute; his megalomania is in itself an expression of his need for proof that he is important. There is a high incidence of constipation in paranoid individuals. All paranoids have strong anal components, problems with order and cleanliness, and obsessions with purity and vice, as well as impurity and infections of others. Anal sadistic fantasies are directed towards the father, because he is seen as the rival for the mother's love; the intensity of the drive to be loved is supported mainly "by the intense need to neutralize and erotisize a tremendous hate." When the unconscious hate is so great, the attempt to erotisize it fails, and the individual turns to sadism.

While homosexual feeling and paranoid delusions may be in bitter conflict, both are, in a sense, dependent on each other and are defenses against one another. Thus, it seems quite possible that Hitler developed paranoid delusions, in part, to fight his homosexual feelings. As long as he persecuted and attacked homosexuals, he felt he was successfully combating his own inadmissible inclinations toward homosexuality.

For one Freud has pointed to the sexual, and indeed the homoerotic, origins of political authority. He studied totemism and sought to locate the origins of the group, publishing "Totem and Taboo" in 1913. Although this is a very debatable work on his part, he did maintain in his later works that paternal proscription of sexual relations with the women of the clan passes to exogamy through homoerotic bonding. Freud locates the origins of the sons' collective organization, their ability to challenge the father's sexual monopoly, in "the homosexual feelings and activities which probably manifested themselves during the time of their banishment." The father's imposition of heterosexual austerities on his sons pushes them into mutual erotic identification, "into group psychology."After killing the primal father, the sons agree that all the clan's women would be denied them. In "Totem and Taboo" Freud made homoerotics into a substitution for heteroerotics, one standing at the origin of the first social contract, the sons' renunciation of the women of the clan as sensuous objects, and their conversion into sexual property to be exhanged exogamously. If exogamous heterosexuality is an original consequence of social organization, endogamous homosexuality is its original source. He never wavered on this foundational basis of modern social organization.

Indeed in "Group Psychology and the Analysis of Ego" Freud makes heterosexual desire into an enemy of social organization, whereas "desexualized, sublimated homosexual love for other, which springs from work in common" is a "civilizing factor." There is no room for woman as a sexual object, he writes, in the great artificial groups of society. The implication is, of course, that there is a place for men as sexual objects. "It seems certain," he writes, "that homosexual love is far more compatible with group ties, even when it takes the shape of uninhibited sexual impulsion..." If in his mythico-history he makes the homoerotics of the rother clan the mediation between the primal horde and exogamous patriarchy, in his clinical studies he makes homoerotics integral to the formation of the male individual ego, to masculine identification, and to the psychic operation of authority more generally.

[...] Paternal identification solves not one, but two problems in this sexual economy. Group formation likewise operates through paternal identification, which, like his murder, is enabled through homoerotic solidarity among the sons. Immediately after explaining in "Group Psychology" that the introjected paternal object is a substitute for the libidinal object tie with the woman, Freud launches into the genesis of male homosexuality, the boy's failure to give up the mother as a cathected object, the "negative" Oedipal complex, the transformation of the male ego on the model of the female. Boy becomes girl mirroring the way in which he has the man, through the matrilineal totem, becoming woman. Group formation is a quintessentially masculine, yet involves men being womanly.

Freud makes homosocial energy the basis of solidarity in complex groups and locates the origin of the social in a renunciation of heterosexual desire. He derives the experience of consubstantiality of totem and man from a fleshy family, from the mother-child bond and the son's deferred identification with the father. [...] Freud's is an imaginary resolution to a scarce heterosexual economy [...] For what in Freud is a feminizing, violent subordination to masculine hierarchy [...] Freud eroticizes power [...] Is it possible that the establishment of the state is itself a sexual act, a double separation of two sexes, woman and man, heterosexual and homosexual, that the state not only has a sex, but is a sex?

With all this meaning, that homoerotics/homosexuality appears to be "crucial," rather than "marginal," doesn't it?!

In regard to this post - I understand you don't to bother about something/someone obviously ludicrous, but still, there's a 5% of the population they say can fall for anything, literally, anything they happen to hear, so..